Congratulations to Imogen Simmons who has been awarded the Actsmart Schools Sustainability Leadership - Secondary Student.
Since her appointment as Sustainability Captain in Term 4 of 2019, Imogen has brought enthusiasm, commitment and drive to the overall approach to sustainability at Merici College. Her thought, planning and effort was undeterred by the disruptions this year and she has produced many important contributions to Sustainability on campus:
- Imogen came to the position with an agenda to focus on waste which has culminated in the establishment of a competition to collect beauty product packaging to be recycled by Terracycle (https://merici.news/event-created/house-competition-%E2%80%93-beauty-product-package-recycling), collection for the Actsmart easter egg foil recycling, increased soft plastic collection and awareness raising on campus (photo attached of painting bins to be used for soft plastic collection), organized an excursion to Hackett Composting to improve knowledge of composting practices, and ran a focus group for interested students on re-usable personal hygiene products.
- Imogen has coordinated the Sustainability at Merici (SAM) student team with weekly meetings and activities covering a wide range of topics, organised Earth Hour, arranged a poster making session for the Student Strike for Climate (SS4C), led a Q&A with 2040 producer Damon Gameau and planting of 16 natives to enhance campus biodiversity for National Tree Day.
- Particularly impressive was her largely self directed coordination of World Environment Day. Imogen gained the support of executive staff to achieve a whole school walk and reflection on the beauty and benefits offered by a healthy environment, had a message for the school placed in the daily notices as well as persuaded the canteen to offer vegetarian food for the day to raise awareness of the lower environmental impact of plant based eating. Imogen also provided a prayer written by Pope Francis that was included in Pastoral Care classes. Her aim was " to appreciate and celebrate biodiversity and the planet we live on" and she certainly achieved her goal.
- Imogen has written Green Tips on waterways in the ACT, the benefits of composting after visiting Hackett Composting (attached), as well as World Environment Day which have been distributed to the school's community. She is also the first student to write a contribution for Sustainability for the Yearbook which will be published later this term.
Imogen also supports her actions to improve Sustainability generally with her personal commitment and values, including choosing a vegan diet to minimise her environmental impact through her dietary choices. Imogen has demonstrated strong leadership on Sustainability throughout the year and has been a valuable role-model to students in younger years.
